Avatar: Story of the World: Fire
by Estrella Tallinfoot
Summary: READ THIS FOURTH The story of how the world began as Earthbending, Airbending, Waterbending and Firebending emerge among past animal gods.


Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Story of the World

Fire

_Only 140 years after Kamin's discovery, the newest art came around. _

_With the earth full of vegetation and life, prey and predators were both plentiful, making this the prime place to find one's center and the sort. But with the oxygen rich air, and the green, green landscape, it was also a place for natural disasters. Many, many storms occurred in this lush land, and even one lighting strike could cause an explosion in a certain area in the forest, baking the land in fire. There was no stop to this burning inferno, and it often killed many of the creatures at a time. With all the water surrounding the islands (or continents, if you prefer) the fresh soil was constantly eroding, often right underneath the animals' feet, sending them tumbling into the salty sea below, where they would drown in a flash, for no creature knew how to swim except for the sea creatures (not very many existed at this point in time) and the man of the hills. _

_The dragons now ruled the land, although man came in a close second. With their large sizes and fiercely aggressive behavior, they terrorized the creatures smaller than them, with sharp fangs and claws that cut like daggers through silk. They moved their agile bodies through the skies on wings of leathery toughness with the greatest of ease (and silence), making catching prey almost that much simpler. All dragons could breathe fire, and it was the lethal kind, of course, from a gland underneath their tongues. The only problem with dragon fire was that it was rarely accurate, because the dragons could not yet control their dangerous adaptation. To encounter a dragon of these days meant (most of the time) certain, almost immediate death. _

_But not all dragons were fierce: most just acted that way. Some of them were old and wise with long tentacle-like whiskers drooping down from their scaly faces. They were very judgmental, and did not like to be bothered (if you did, you would likely be smote on the spot). _

_Now, as usual, I will single out one particular dragon. His name was Raidon and he was a particularly nasty dragon, with wings the size of full grown airbisons, great, clawed feet the size of elephants, and teeth and claws (razor sharp, obviously) the size of battle swords, and horrifyingly pale golden eyes and blood-red scales. He had a terrible temper filled with ferocity and was considered the 'king of beasts', if you will. He was greatly feared among all creatures and not at all highly revered by the gods in any way (by this time there were more than three or four). Raidon would always pick on animals of the lesser size, often torturing them by bringing them back to his cave (it wasn't really his, he just killed the previous owner), roasting bits of their paws or tails while they shrieked and wailed in terror or scraping them down their sides with his enormous claws, or just killing them on the spot, burning them with his flame, striking them with his tail or squishing them underneath his feet. Raidon would often challenge even the man of the hills to claim his superiority and malice over all creatures, so even though it seemed everybody was out to get him, nobody did. _

_One day, Raidon was trying to catch one of the most elusive (and entertaining) animals of the area to torture: the long-legged jasper. The intangible jasper kept darting to and fro underneath bushes and burrows and thickets and the like, but kept ending up getting burned out (after a few tries from Raidon). All this was a great pleasure to Raidon, for he loved something that would give him an actual chase rather than run blindly into a place where it was cornered and easy to finish off. _

"_Keep running, little one, all the more fun for me!" he laughed as the creature darted into a small crevice between earth and a wall of rock. _

"_Oh my, my, when will this end?" mourned the jasper from inside the crevice. "What am I saying? This will obviously end in my death."_

"_Quite right," snarled Raidon, his enormous eye peering evilly into the small hole, and he blew a puff of flame into it, which scorched the poor jasper. _

_The jasper let off a small yelp and Raidon reached inside and hooked a scruff of fur on the back of the jasper's neck, pulling him out and grinning at him with the most mischievous of grins. _

"_Oh, what to do, what to do…" sighed Raidon, trying to decide whether to kill the jasper now or take him back to his cave and torture and then kill him. _

"_Oh, please, sir, great and mighty dragon Raidon, kill me now and save me from this agony," cried the jasper through a cracked and croaky voice. _

_Raidon merely laughed and stuck out his long, lizard-like tongue, ready to plop the jasper onto it and swallow him. _

Raidon_, came a mysterious voice. Raidon halted his laughter and moved his eye to look around, but did not swing his great head. _Raidon_, it came again. This time, the great dragon swung himself around and seared the vegetation around him to weed out any visitors that might have been calling his name. When no one appeared, Raidon continued slowly (and painfully) dropping the jasper onto his tongue. _Raidon!_ This time it was obviously female and sorrowful, and it came to his attention immediately. The sound was also loud enough for Raidon to pinpoint where it had come from. He looked up to the heavens and saw a haze of light descend and a half-transparent dragon (much unlike himself) walked down on an invisible staircase to him. _

_She was beautiful. She had a long, white, lithe body with a sea green/blue mane that ran from her graceful head all the way down to her tufted tail, and deep brown eyes full of love and sadness that seemed to go on forever. Her face was like a weasel's, but yet, it was dragonish. Her feet had four toes with small (but sharp) claws that were daintily picked up and set down in front of her. Long, tan horns adorned her head and they reached back to the middle of her neck without curling like an impala's. Elongated whiskers protruded from her face by her nose and they seemed to make her all the more beautiful as she glided down the staircase. She was obviously a goddess. _

"_Raidon," she whispered once more. _

"_My lady," spoke Raidon, and he bowed his head in a courteous (but not as courteous as it should have for a goddess) manner. The jasper looked on in complete terror. After all, what could be worse than two powerful dragons? "What brings the Goddess of Life down into our humble world?"_

"_You know very well what I want." Her voice was not more than above a whisper, but it seemed to penetrate into the very mind of both the jasper and Raidon. _

"_My lady?" questioned Raidon, playing innocent (he was well aware of his behavior). _

"_Why have you acted this way towards other animals that have done nothing wrong?"_

"_They are the prey and I am the hunter," said Raidon, licking his lips and baring his teeth. _

_Suddenly, the goddess leaped and pinned Raidon, claws fully extended (they were about 2 feet long) and teeth much longer than Raidon's snarling at him in the face. Raidon roared; her claws had dug into his shoulders and they were extremely painful. Her voice had now turned into a devilish growl. "That is no excuse. Why have you acted this way towards other animals that have done nothing wrong?"_

_This time, Raidon was at a loss for words. He merely stared defiantly at the goddess until the rage withdrew from her eyes and she removed her claws from his shoulders and her mouth closed over her shining teeth. "One more time, Raidon. One more time that you kill an innocent victim who has done you no wrong, and you will get what you deserve." And she faded away and the light disappeared, and Raidon was left with the jasper (he had been flung to the side when the goddess pinned Raidon), who was looking quite like he had wet himself. _

"_What are you looking at?" snarled Raidon, and the jasper put his tail between his legs and dragged himself all the way home. Raidon was in such a state of shock and his temper had risen quite a bit. But strangely, he listened to her advice and tried to be a more civil dragon. The only problem was his breath of fire. It used to be that when Raidon talked, often little puffs of flame would erupt from his mouth, and he wouldn't mind it; it would often add to his torture. But now it was only like a small curse for Raidon couldn't talk anymore without almost setting the whole area of the forest he was in on fire. _

_One morning, while Raidon was asleep (or half-asleep), a small figure crept up to him and tapped him on the tail (very, very cautiously). Waking up, and for the first time in his life, not immediately killing the figure, Raidon swung his great neck around to find himself face to face with the jasper that he had almost killed the day the goddess had visited him. _

"_What do you want?" mumbled Raidon sleepily. _

"_I just wanted to thank you, great and mighty Raidon," said the jasper (even though Raidon was not as violent, he still demanded respect from the creatures), "for not killing me that day."_

_Raidon only snarled. _

"_So I wanted to help you," continued the jasper. _

"_With what?" growled Raidon, moving his great head (with bared teeth) close to the jasper's head. _

"_Controlling your fiery breath, o mighty one," whimpered the jasper, still a bit scared. "You wouldn't want that devil of a goddess to find out you've been scorching the other animals' behinds when you've said goodbye."_

_Raidon's eyes grew wide with curiosity. "How?"_

"_I remember my great great great great grandfather, and my even greater grandfather still witnessing the discovery of Earthbending and Airbending; I bet I could teach you how to…well…Firebend."_

"_I don't believe you," said Raidon through gritted teeth. _

"_Just give me a chance, and I will prove it. If you don't, you may smite me and get away with it, you have my word," pleaded the jasper. _

"_All right," Raidon decided, liking the idea of smiting the annoying jasper. _

_And so they did. Raidon quickly learned how to control his fire, and he even learned to move it with his feet; it was a great way to vent his bottled up rage. But even so, the ever curious man of the hills also picked up this most dangerous art also. _

_On this last and final afternoon of the story, Raidon was flying overhead towards his cave (he was a long ways away from it) when a great ball of fire came hurtling at him. It struck him in the side and he fell towards the earth. Landing with a huge crash that decimated a good bit of forest, he struggled to get his great body up and flying again, but found that he had landed awkwardly on his wing, and that it hurt very much. Then came, running out of the shrubbery and fallen trees, came man. They were not armed, but Raidon could see in their eyes that they did not mean well for him. Raidon roared and tried to escape the vile creature, but it just kept coming closer. He prepared to Firebend, but remembered that he could not, for he did not know for sure that this was the creature who had shot him down. He stared on with anger at the man, and it came right up close to him, near his heart. _

"_The extermination has begun," said the man, but of course Raidon hardly understood. Then he raised his hands and shot two blasts into Raidon's heart, then walked away, carrying away one of Raidon's precious horns as proof that he had killed the great, mighty dragon. _

"_What have I done?" whispered Raidon as he lay there bleeding in the destruction. A light then suddenly appeared from the sky, and down walked the goddess that had changed his ways what seemed like so long ago. She walked so gracefully down from the heaven, and gave Raidon a kiss on the cheek, making Raidon smile for the first time in his life, and he lay down his head and died. _

_This is the final tale: I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm sorry if there are any plot holes in the story of where everything fits in now in Avatar. I'm also sorry that this one took so long to make, even though it turned out way crappier than the other three. Thank you for reading. _


End file.
